AADS Speaker Series: History on the Run: Knowledge Formation Against State Violence

Bridging critical Hmong studies and critical refugee studies with Asian American studies, this talk will foreground knowledge formation from community perspectives as they rub up against "official" knowledge. Drawing on Hmong epistemological perspectives against U.S. redacted archival records that erase Hmong and Laos's history during the U.S. "secret war," the talk will explore the politics of knowledge formation which has generated historiography about the Hmong refugee as a masculinized refugee soldier and a distinct U.S. ally. Taking a feminist refugee approach and the framework of history on the run, the talk will show that Hmong refugee history illuminates the group's non-state status in Southeast Asia during Cold War postcolonial Laos. The talk argues that Hmong women's narratives rechronicles the history of war through the patterns of displacement and migration rather than military operations, which does not succumb to either the veteran or "good" refugee representations. Hmong women's narratives' rechronicling of history foregrounds refugees as knowing subjects whose social production can help us understand the processes of war and militarism, gender and migration, and knowledge formation.

Ma Vang is an Associate Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Merced. Her book, History on the Run: Secrecy, Fugitivity, and Hmong Refugee Epistemologies (Duke University Press, 2021), examines how secrecy structures both official knowledge and refugee epistemologies about militarism and forced migration. She is the co-editor of Claiming Place: On the Agency of Hmong Women (University of Minnesota Press, 2016), and her writings have been published in positions: asia critique MELUS, and Critical Ethnic Studies Journal.

Preregistration is required, and only those with a duke.edu email address will be able to register.
https://tinyurl.com/history-on-the-run

If you need a disability-related accommodation, contact Asian American and Diaspora Studies (dukeaasp@duke.edu) by March 10, 2022.